


Not So Elementary

by White_Noise



Series: The Other Life of Quentin Holmes, Quartermaster [13]
Category: Elementary (TV), James Bond (Craig movies), Sherlock (TV), Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: M/M, My god Qs family is weird!, Q is a Holmes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-10
Updated: 2013-02-10
Packaged: 2017-11-28 19:51:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/678260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/White_Noise/pseuds/White_Noise
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's a seemingly quiet day at MI6. That is, until Qs cousin calls. Drugs and Murder in the United States seems to be all in a days work for a certain detective. It's a pity that, this time he wants to get Q involved.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not So Elementary

**Author's Note:**

> So I decided to challenge myself and add another character to my Bondlock universe which I am re-naming for this story, the Elebondlock universe. It's my first time writing Elementary Sherlock, so please be kind. Because I haven't actually seen the show yet.
> 
> As normal, a big shout out to the beta of this series, Cathryn. Also a huge thank you to my friend Katrina, who used her superior Elementary knowledge to check over this. Thank you for your help my dear. You are the Q to my Bond. (This statement is actually correct. Being blue eyed, blond haired and ex-navy, I recently took my first step into cosplay by taking on the role of Bond to her Q for her new Tumblr. It has been very entertaining so far.)

There was something special, almost sacred about the Quartermasters office. A mystic feel. It was a place where funding was decided. A place where the work of a whole team and 36 hours with no sleep could be instantly vetoed. A place where knowledge seemed to seep and even the brightest could feel their intelligence dissolve under the partial stare of the Quartermaster. To put it lightly, it was the place few dared to tread.

And it should be. Q had put a lot of effort into making his office as uninviting as possible. It was his territory and in his territory, he was king. Of course, he was also the unofficial king of Q branch. The title of Quartermaster advertising that all by itself. But he shared that territory with his minions. The office was his space alone.

It was sad then to think that the office itself wasn't overly special. Not nearly as large or as confronting as Ms office, not nearly as homely as the head medics. Hell, even the head physical trainer had a better office then the Quartermaster. Yet, Q liked his office. Well, he liked it when he didn't have to be in it.

It was time for the annual review of the budget. A job which Q would certainly love to delegate away from himself, if it wasn't for the fact that his whole department were made up of untrustworthy bastards who would love to slip in private expenses. Q had learnt his lesson last year when he had unwisely allowed the section heads to run up their own budgets. M had called him up to explain why the budget had listed, among other things, parts which Q suspected could be used to recreate the Large Hadron Collider. Bloody R&D.

Q’s mood was almost certainly worsened by the smell of gunpowder clinging to him. Annual budgets seemed to remind everyone of other annual things and Q had spent most of his day on the gun range, re-qualifying in small arms and ignoring the amazement of the field agent sent to assess him as he gaped at Q’s high scores. He may be the Quartermaster, but that didn't mean he didn't know how to shoot.

Still, Q had been left with a headache and the certain knowledge that he would be working late into the night and most of the next day to finish the budget, only breaking off in the morning for his annual medical. Not that it was truly annual. It had been less than six months since Q had survived a bullet in his stomach and the head medic still insisted on seeing him every few weeks. No doubt the medical would be a nice conversation and papers signed off and not much else, seeing as he had already done it all recently.

At least, he should get signed off if the bloody paperwork didn't kill him first.

Q had to admit, he had never thought of this part of the job when he had been younger, back when he had just been another member of Q Branch, chasing the old Quartermaster around for his signature. Even when he was R, he had never realised just how much paperwork the branch generated. He would have to get someone on it.

It was decided. First thing tomorrow, he would call up Steph, the head hacker and ask her to spare someone for a while to write up a new program. An electronic requisition sheet so he could keep track of every call for funding from every section without having to wade through a monster pile of paper.

No doubt future Quartermasters would thank him.

But that wasn't going to happen tonight. Q sighed and shifted a pile of paper. The armoury wanted to join forces with Tech section again. Their last joint project, the PPK 9mm palm coded firearm had become a standard issue and as far as Q could understand, they wanted to try the same thing with a shot gun. How agents would be able to discreetly carry a shot gun had not been addressed.

Also, the head mechanic wanted a budget increase to try and lure a prominent French car designer to MI6. Apparently, Andrew, the head mechanic, was a fan of Renault.

Yes, it looked like an all-night job, looking through all this.

Q’s mobile rang, making him jump slightly. Q looked around guiltily before remembering that no one of sense would go near his office. He reached for his phone. It wasn't his work phone, which he kept in his pocket at all times in order to hinder Eve’s current quest to personalize his ring tone, but his personal one. He looked at the number. He didn't recognise it. Hesitating slightly, he raised it to his ear.

"Hello?" he said.

"Hello Quentin." a voice Q hadn't heard in a long time said.

Q swallowed.

"Sherlock." he responded.

There was silence, neither man willing to speak. Finally, Q’s patience won out.

"So...how are you little cousin?" Sherlock asked on the other side of the phone.

Q shrugged, even though he knew he couldn't be seen.

"I am fine." he didn't volunteer anything else. He didn't want to.

"Really?" Sherlock asked, his voice becoming light as if he were amused. "Last thing I heard, you had been shot."

Q blinked.

"How did you know about that?" he demanded.

There was a moments of silence in which Q could almost hear the glare.

"Father is very insistent that I know what has been happening in the family during my time in the states. He threatened to cut my funding if I don't make at least a show of listening during his long and boring rants. Sometimes things do sink in."

"Ah." Q said, more to himself than anyone else. Both men fell silent again but this time it was Q who ended up breaking.

"Are you clean at the moment?" he finally asked.

There was a snort.

"I'm alive, aren’t I?" Sherlock asked over the line. Q pulled the phone from his ear.

"Only just." He muttered to himself before returning the phone to his ear. "Why have you called me?"

"Isn't a man allowed to enquiry after his favourite little cousin?" Sherlock asked.

Q didn't even bother to muffle his laugh of disbelief.

"Favourite little cousin? Firstly, given that you are the same age as my brother, I am your only little cousin and secondly, you didn't seem to realise I existed most of the time. You spent most of your childhood around my family either sulking or getting into fist fights."

There was silence for a moment before Sherlock spoke again.

"I always knew you were there." he defended.

"You never acted like it." Q shot back. "Too busy arguing with everyone over whose bloody name it was first."

"Ah yes. Speaking of which, how is the pretender? I heard about his little indiscretion recently. And I have to say, I was hurt he never took the time to come to New York and visit."

Q clenched his free hand, watching as his knuckles went white.

"Sherlock, we have all said it before. Your name is an old, traditional name, originating from the first Sherlock Holmes in the 1800’s. Just because you and my brother happen to share the same name, doesn't mean either of you have the right to it. The same goes with Mycroft and uncle Mike."

There was a laugh from the other end of the line.

"Oh please, Quentin. All that petty squabbling between me and Sherly was handled years ago."

"Oh really?" Q asked. "Then you finally agreed on who invented the title of Consulting Detective?"

"I invented it and your brother is a prick if he claims otherwise." Sherlock shot back, voice suddenly angry. Q went silent. It was a pointed silence.

Seeming to have noticed that he had lost control, Sherlock took a deep breath.

"I'm sorry Quentin. I didn't mean to snap."

Q stayed silent. Once upon a time, he had adored his cousin. Sherlock had represented normality, or at least what Q with his erratic home life had understood as normality, growing up as he had. With Father dead, Mummy off in London all the bloody time, Mycroft hiding out at school and then university and his own brother Sherlock seeing Q as more of a pet or test subject then a little brother, this other Sherlock, cousin  Sherlock, along with Uncle Mike, had represented something new. Something exciting. It had taken Q a few years to realise that this didn't mean that his cousin was normal. He was not.

Q still remembered the incident when it had all come to ahead. It had been a family Christmas, the last before Q completed University. Mycroft had taken time off from his 'minor' position in the British government and Sherlock had turned up from wherever he had been. (Officially travelling around Europe, but unofficially, Q had seen him living in the back alleys in central London, no doubt recruiting the very first of what he would later call the Baker Street Irregulars)

Uncle Mike had turned up, dragging Q’s unwilling cousin to celebrate with the family. Of course, everyone could see what was going on. Drug use has a very distinctive look about it. Like a bomb waiting to blow.

It was tactfully assumed that no one would comment and they would all hope that they could get through the meal. Unfortunately, sociopaths don't always think in the same way.

It only took one badly timed statement and suddenly Q’s brother was thrown onto the table, his cousin on top of him and attempting to do considerable facial reconstruction. Of course, the sociopath could hold his own in a fight and it took both Q and Mycroft to pull their brother back while Uncle Mike managed to get his son into a headlock. Mummy had been less then impressed.

Cousin Sherlock had been uninvited from family events indefinitely until he could clean up his act. Sadly, the family was still waiting for that day, after Sherlock in spectacular self-destructive fashion, got his heart broken and attempted to overdose before finally admitting he had a problem and disappearing to the US.

Still, if all the reports Q had seen were anything to go by, Sherlock was actually doing well in New York. He was living with a sober companion, a young woman called Joan Watson (Yes, Q had marvelled at the irony of the situation. It seemed that both his brother and his cousin needed the obvious strength that only people given the Watson name could provide.)

"Quentin?" Sherlock asked, clearly worried about the silence.

Sighing, Q focused his attention back on the phone.

"Why did you call me, Sherlock?" he asked, finally unclenching his hand. He shook his hand, ignoring the pins and needles before running it through his hair.

"I needed help for a case."

"I know a detective." Q offered.

"Correction, I need a hacker for a case."

Q couldn't help but smile. He came from a family of geniuses and yet, none of them would refer to anything more advanced then Wikipedia. It was both amusing and alarming. Still, the young Quartermaster wasn't petty enough to lord his superior computer skills over anyone. Well, mostly.

"For what exactly?" he asked, jamming the phone against his shoulder and leaving his hands free. The hacker quickly pushed aside a stack of paper and pulled his keyboard closer. The screen of his computer blinked to life.

"I need you to get into the Home Office."

Q paused, his hands resting lightly on the keyboard.

"And why exactly?" He couldn't help but ask. He was a member of MI6 and therefore, not connected directly to the Home Office but it did seem that his cousin was asking him to break into his own system.

"I need some information about the extradition orders for a man called Jonathan McMann."

Q didn't even bother to ask why. Instead, he set his hands on the keyboard and began to type. It was much easier than most of the systems Q had been forced to hack over the years. The Home Office employed a system remarkably like MI6 but unlike MI6, the backdoor entrances were not secure. Q easily broke through the firewall, grinning to himself.

"Take that, Anonymous." he muttered partly to himself. On the other side of the line, Sherlock laughed.

"Successful, I take it." he said. Q ignored him.

There was a few minutes silence as Q shifted through the files, looking for the correct document. Finally, he found it.

"Got him. Jonathan McMann, extradited to the US for questioning regarding his suspected involvement in a homicide." there was a pause as Q read on. Someone must have red flagged this case. There was an amazing amount of detail for a standard extradition order.

"Huh!" he said to himself. "He fought the extradition order and lost but the moment he arrived in the States the charges disappeared."

There was another pause.

"Sherlock, why did you want me to get this?" the Quartermaster finally asked.

"Oh, McMann was found dead a few days ago. The police ruled it a suicide but I think I can prove it was murder. I just needed to know how they got him out of England."

"Yet, you already knew there was an order to extradite him?"

"Oh no. I just took a guess. Given the facts surrounding the case, an extradition seemed the easiest way to force him to return." Sherlock said.

"So someone sought to extradite him and forced him back into America to kill him?" Q couldn't help but ask. It was an automatic response grained through a hard childhood. The answer was obvious but like his brother, the Holmes Cousin needed to feel superior by explaining everything in impressive detail. It was just how he worked.

"I know they did. It was his sister. She wanted his inheritance and arranged his murder. He knew someone was out to get him and ran. She got him extradited so he couldn't run away again."

"What a horrible thing to do to a sibling." Q said, almost absentmindedly.

"Well, if you ever tried to suddenly leave the country, I am sure Cousin Mycroft would have you brought back. If he could beat MI6 to it, that is. I hear they are not very fond of their operatives going AWOL."

Q rolled his eyes. Sherlock knew, just like every other member of the family, the terms of Q’s employment.

"That would never happen." he said, pressing a few buttons and erasing his trail in the Home Office server. He powered down his computer and leant back in his chair. His hand found his pen. It was a fountain pen, a present from Mummy. He twirled it in his fingers.

"Still terrified of flying?" Sherlock asked.

Q rolled his eyes a second time.

"Yes."

Sherlock snorted.

"Pity. I would love to get you stateside. I need a good connection in the CIA and  with your background, you be snapped up the moment you landed."

"I am not infiltrating the American government for you Sherlock. That is Mycroft’s job."

"Yes, but your dear old brother refuses to give me any information when I ask. It is frustrating."

It was Q’s turn to snort.

"He won't give his siblings information. What made you think you would be any more successful?"

"Oh I don't know. I am sure I could find some weak spot."

Q smiled.

There was a click, the door to Q’s office swinging open. Q glared as the intruder entered into his private sanctuary. Only one man was presumptuous enough to enter Q’s office without knocking. Bond ignored the glare, closing the door behind him before turning back, grabbing the spare chair from its corner and sitting down.

"Sherlock, it's been lovely but I must sign off. Something has just come up." Q said, reaching over and smacking James' hand away as the agent made a grab for the piles of paper on his desk, clearly interested in finding out what his Quartermaster was working one.

"Your Double O?" Sherlock asked.

Q fought back the urge to ask Sherlock just how he knew about Bond. Sherlock was a Holmes after all, and Holmes' knew everything.

"Goodbye Sherlock." he said pointedly.

"Keep in touch Quentin." Sherlock replied coolly, but Q could hear the amusement in his voice.

Q hung up the phone, fighting the urge to throw the device across the room. He looked over at James who had somehow managed to grab a folder off Q’s desk and was reading it.

Q sighed and glanced at his watch. It already read 08:26. Sherlock’s call had wasted far too much time already. He looked down at the paper still in front of him.

"Can I help you 007?" he asked, uncapping his pen. He scribbled his signature across the page and set it aside, leaving the ink to dry as he looked down at the next page.

"Eve sent me to check up on you. She says you have been working on the budget for the last four days."

Q reached up, pushing his glasses closer to his face. He didn't bother to look up at the agent.

"Well, you can tell Miss Moneypenny that I am fine." he replied.

"I believe I will be the judge of that."

"And your conclusion?"

There were a few moments of silence. Q could almost feel those blue eyes watching him intently.

"Grab your coat. I'm taking you home."

Q sighed.

"As pleasant as the idea is, Accounts are expecting me to submit this tomorrow and I really do not have time to waste."

He finally looked up at the agent. Bond was smiling his little half smile. The one he used when he was amused but trying not to show it.

"Eve may have mentioned your little predicament and I may have visited the Head of accounts."

"Put the fear of God in them, did you?" Q asked, signing the next piece of paper.

"More like the fear of me."

"Don't let M hear you say that."

Bond shrugged. It was the sort of gesture that on him, said that what M thought could go to hell. It wasn't that he didn't respect the man. It was hard not to after that mess that was the siege on Skyfall. But he wasn't Bond's M. And that counted a lot to the agent.

"They said send your paperwork through when you are finished."

Ah. Accountant speak. Roughly translated, it meant that regardless of how soon Q managed to get the budget in, he would still get a disapproving look. Using Double Os to threaten a fellow agent, regardless of if you knew it was happening or not, wasn't playing fair.

Q sighed again, already knowing he had lost the fight.

"Hand me my jacket." he ordered, collecting the papers and placing them back in their designated folders.

Anyone who said Bond wasn't good at following orders had clearly never seen him take an order from his Quartermaster. The agent rose to his feet, leaving the stolen folder on the seat as he nodded happily and collected the younger mans jacket from its hook on the back of the door. Unlike the members of Q Branch, the office held no fear for the Double O. Hell, he spent most of his time lurking there when not off somewhere being shot at with his Quartermaster screaming in his ear. Q had the suspicion that, like with the rest of his life, Bond was trying to take over while he wasn't looking.

Still, an extension was not to be ignored. Q pushed his chair away from his desk and climbed to his feet. Bond was immediately behind him, holding out his jacket in a way that allowed the Quartermaster to slid his arms into the sleeves.

Q’s wallet, keys and phones were shoved into various pockets and a hand was placed on his shoulder, the Double O clearly meaning to guide him out. Q couldn't help but smile a little at this and accept the offer. He may have to suffer through the teasing of his family, but he wouldn't give this up for the world.

...also, Q knew where they all lived.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Facts and Probabilities](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6593839) by [PalauMaggot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PalauMaggot/pseuds/PalauMaggot)




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